Organizations as Political Arenas and Political Agents

1
Organizations as Political Arenas and Political
Agents

• Chapter 11

2
Key Terms

• Political arena Theater for ongoing contests
  among different interests and agendas
• Political agent vehicle for achieving the goals
  and purposes of those in control
• Political ecosystem the system of external
  environmental agents within which an organization
  functions and with which it intereacts

3
Organizations as Arenas

• Arenas house contests
• Every organizational process is political
• The question is
• Whos preferences and interests are to be served
  by the organization?

4
Bottom-Up and Top-Down Actions

• What are examples of bottom-up political action
  in the US?
• How does top-down generally work?
• What is the leaders typical mistake in these
  scenarios?

5
Organizations as Political Agents

• What are typical organizational constituents?
• What was the text example?
• What is the typical organizational ecosystem?
• How does politics between organizations and
  ecosystems work?

6
Ecosystems

• What is a
• Business ecosystem?
• Public Policy ecosystem?
• Business-Government Ecosystem?
• Society as an ecosystem?

7
External Control of Organizations

• Are organizations creatures or creations of their
  environment?
• Three roles the leader must serve
• Responsive role comply with pressures from the
  environment
• Discretionary role alter organizations
  relationship with the environment
• Symbolic role change leaders in an appearance
  of making a change (doesnt do a thing)

8
Political Arenas

• Organizations are arenas for internal politics
• Political agents with their own agendas,
  resources, strategies
• Organizations exist and co-evolve in ecosystems
• Relationships between systems are strong